Joyland; Stephen King

Devin Jones, is a 21 year-old college kid from New Hampshire who
is going through a rough time. His girl friend Wendy calls it quits so
he decides he needs a change of scenery and something to keep him busy
over the summer. He takes a job at a North Carolina, beach community
amusement park. It's 1973 and the amusement park run down and barely
surviving. No modern or fancy rides, instead it's draw tends to be the
kinds of things that we've seen in the movies in years gone by. There's a
boardwalk, a few rides and the types of attractions sometimes found at a
county fair: a fortune teller, some sexy girls who take pictures of the
visitors and then pressure them to buy a photo or take a chance etc.

It doesn't take Devin long to get and make a few friends. He meets a few other
college kids who live at the same boarding house and are also working at
the amusement park. Together with Tom Kennedy and Erin Cook, the
threesome find themselves becoming good friends, doing what teens do. The also find themselves
focused on and unsolved murder case of a young girl that happened years
earlier in the House of Horrors at Joyland. The girl may be gone but her ghost seems to alive and
well. There's also Annie and ten-year old Michael, a boy with
MS and is in a wheelchair, who play a significant part in the story.

So is Joyland a horror fest, crime fiction, a murder
mystery or ghost story? Honestly, I suppose it's a little of all of
these, except for the horror perhaps -- there wasn't any of that like
some of King's other works. The story is narrated by Devin (Dev) some 40
years later and I think that worked well. I liked listening to the 60
year-old Dev, reflect on that impressionable summer he spent at Joyland.
King did a great job on his character, and everything about being a
college kids in 1973 seemed to feel right. For me, Joyland seemed like a
cool coming of age story -- the 70's setting, the colorful characters
etc. However, for such a short novel, by King standards, it felt like
something was missing. I listened to the audio version which was well
done, read by Michael Kelly. Not perfect, but overall, a decent summer book.

It's been about a million years since I've read a Stephen King (Yes, I'm the one who hasn't read 11/22/63). There's something that draws me into this one. I've got kinda a think for creepy carny type settings.

It sounds fun, and at least there are ghosts in it, even if not outright horror. I'm counting down until his Dr Sleep is released, the sequel to The Shining! Now that will have horror in it (it better, anyway). Meanwhile, this is a good review of Joyland, and I definitely want to pick it up now.

Sounds like an exciting beach read. I started listening to Under the Dome and must say, had to stop after maybe 1/4 of it. Have you read it? I just couldn't stand the language. Is that how people talk in the U.S? An F word to start every sentence. Of course not. But why bring that kind of vernacular into the writing? The TV show isn't like that. Guess they have to self-censor. But I was really put off when listening to the audio book. This is the first time I've ever complained about the language use of a book. I'm usually quite lenient about that. ;)

Sounds like an exciting beach read. I started listening to Under the Dome and must say, had to stop after maybe 1/4 of it. Have you read it? I just couldn't stand the language. Is that how people talk in the U.S? An F word to start every sentence. Of course not. But why bring that kind of vernacular into the writing? The TV show isn't like that. Guess they have to self-censor. But I was really put off when listening to the audio book. This is the first time I've ever complained about the language use of a book. I'm usually quite lenient about that. ;)

I agree with what a previous commenter said: The cover is the clincher. I like (but don't love) Stephen King and there always seems to be something more than simply a new Stephen King book to coax me into reading his novels. The cover will do that for this novel.

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